Thursday students will begin moving into the new Lassonde Studios at the University of Utah. The new $45-million dollar facility features a huge public space on the ground floors for all U students to use.Troy D’ Ambrosio is the executive director of the Lassonde Entrepreneur Institute. He says this culminates efforts that go back to the founding of the institute in 2002.
“So we’ve had a great experience with students and we had several thousand students participate with us every year," says D'Ambrosio, "but what we’re now doing is putting them together in one spot and letting them interact and I actually think that great things are going to happen.”
D’ Ambrosio says the residents they are calling the “Lassonde 400” range in experience from freshmen to those working on their PhD’s.
“The students that are coming to live here and the applications that we received; over 1200 of them, are really an innovative group of people, people that have a passion about something, that want to come here and accomplish something, that want to have an impact on the world,” says D'Ambrosio.
Canadian mining magnate Pierre Lassonde received his MBA at the University of Utah and is the founder of the Institute under which the studios run. He is expected to be among the visiting dignitaries at the official opening of the studios next week.
